| Sumario: | For the most part, the majority of people have accepted too readily the current conventional thinking that manufacturing is no longer significant. It is now nearly universally accepted that, in the age of the New Economy, it is no longer important for advanced countries, such as the U.S., to maintain a strong manufacturing base, as the assumption is that postindustrial services, rather than manufacturing, are now the chief engine of economic progress. However, it may not be such a good idea for the U.S. to let its former world-beating manufacturing prowess decline as it leads the world into the postindustrial age, as manufacturing offers a better balance of jobs and provides a significant contribution to exports. Moreover, advanced manufacturing is almost completely dominated by a few ultra-rich nations, of which Japan and Germany are by far the most important, and, in the ways that matter most to policy makers on both sides of the Pacific, Japan has continued to gain on the U.S. during the 1990s, and has achieved this simply because it has persisted with manufacturing. A discussion on Japan's economic situation is provided.
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